Terror returns to the streets
SPAIN: A manhunt was under way for the driver of a van that mowed through crowds of tourists on Barcelona’s most famous avenue yesterday, killing at least 13 people in an attack that was claimed by Islamic State.
Authorities said the death toll could rise, with more than 100 people injured, some seriously.
Police said they had arrested two men, a Moroccan and a man from Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla, though neither was the driver. Witnesses said the driver fled on foot.
It was still not clear how many attackers were involved.
Hours beforehand, one person was killed in an explosion in a house in a town southwest of Barcelona, in an incident linked to the attack, police added. Residents of the house were preparing explosives, a police source said.
As the manhunt continued into the night, police said several attackers were killed in a shootout during an operation against what they called a possible ‘‘terror attack’’ in Cambrils, another town south of Barcelona.
Earlier in Barcelona, witnesses said the white van zig-zagged at high speed down Las Ramblas, a busy avenue thronged with tourists, hitting pedestrians and cyclists, sending some hurtling through the air and leaving bodies strewn in its wake.
Isis’s Amaq news agency said: ‘‘The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states’’ – a reference to a United States-led coalition against the Sunni militant group.
Spain has several hundred soldiers in Iraq providing training to local forces in the fight against Isis, but they are not involved in ground operations.
The Isis claim could immediately be verified.
If the involvement of Islamist militants is confirmed, it would be the latest in a string of attacks in the past 13 months in which they have used vehicles to bring carnage to the streets of European cities.
That modus operandi – crude, deadly and very hard to prevent – has killed well over 100 people in Nice, Berlin, London and Stockholm.
British tourist Keith Welling, who arrived in Barcelona on Thursday with his wife and 9-yearold daughter, said they saw the van drive past them down the avenue and took refuge in a restaurant when panic broke out and the crowd started running.
‘‘People were shouting and we heard a bang, and someone cried that it was a gunshot . . . Me and my family ran into the restaurant along with around 40 other people.
‘‘At first, people were going crazy in there, lots of people crying, including a little girl around three years old.’’
It was the deadliest attack in Spain since March 2004, when Islamist militants placed bombs on commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding more than 1800.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced three not days of official mourning for what he called a ‘‘jihadist attack’’.
The Spanish royal household said on Twitter: ‘‘They are murderers, nothing more than criminals who are not going to terrorise us. All of Spain is Barcelona.’’
Police said the two men detained after the attack had been arrested in two towns, Ripoll and Alcanar, both in the region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.
The explosion was also in the town of Alcanar, in the early hours. One person died and another was injured in that incident, police said.
Police said they also shot dead a man who had driven a car into a police checkpoint in Barcelona yesterday, though they had no evidence that he was connected with the van attack.
Mobile phone footage showed several bodies strewn along the Ramblas, some motionless. Paramedics and bystanders were bent over them, treating them and trying to comfort those still conscious.
Around them, the boulevard was deserted, covered in rubbish and abandoned objects, including hats, flip-flops, bags and a pram.
Belgium’s foreign minister said a Belgian was among the dead.
Regional head Carles Puigdemont said people had been flocking to hospitals in Barcelona to give blood.
Susana Elvira Carolina, 33, who works at a shop on Las Ramblas, had just entered her building when the van struck.
‘‘We had a window, and you could see the bodies lying from there, you could see how people were run over . . . We were shutting down the blinds but people kept coming in, and we had to keep it open so they could enter the shop.’’
The incident took place at the height of the tourist season in Barcelona, one of Europe’s top travel destinations with at least 11 million visitors a year.
French President Emmanuel